Page 21 of Hideaway

Internally cringing at being calledbabyyet again, Kara did as he asked, hesitantly opening her mouth with her head tilted up.

“Wider,” Jace ordered.

Feeling positively asinine, Kara opened her mouth as wide as she could, feeling her jaw ache with the stretch.

“There you go. Stay like that. Now, open your throat, like you’re about to take a cock really deep.”

“Jace!” Kara screamed in indignation, moving from her position as she second guessed her decision to be alone in a room with Jace.

“I told you to stay,” Jace admonished, gripping her hair and pulling her head back. “Now open your mouth unless you want me to pour this somewhere else.

Annoyed but tired of fighting, Kara opened her mouth for him. She watched him raise the bottle above her mouth without actually touching her lips. Then he poured slowly as Kara opened her throat and let the liquor slide down. That time, she didn’t choke on it, and it was easier to get down.

“There, isn’t that better?”

Kara nodded in agreement, her hair still held in Jace’s fist.

“Do you want more, baby?” Jace asked, his voice low and sultry.

Again, Kara nodded. This time, thebabydidn’t bother her as much. Maybe the alcohol was working after all. Jace raised the bottle to her lips and poured, but before she could swallow, his mouth was on hers, drinking in the taste of liquor and the taste of her as they shared a burning kiss. For a moment, Kara allowed herself to forget who she was kissing. She allowed herself to forget about Cade. She allowed herself to enjoy the experience of being wanted and desired, and she opened her mouth for Jace to explore. For one moment, she allowed herself to feel sated by the feel of his tongue on hers, his hands roaming her body looking for exposed skin, his hands roaming lower still.

And then that moment shattered.

Suddenly, the kiss feltwrong. The feel of Jace’s mouth against hers waswrong. The taste of him on her lips waswrong. The caress of his hand trailing along her inner thighs was very, verywrong. Because Jace wasn’t Cade. And as much as she wanted to forget about Cade and what he was doing at that very moment, she couldn’t let go enough to drown herself in the attentions of another man. Against reason and her better judgment, she cared about Cade. She cared about what he would feel about her kissing Jace, even when she knew he was out with someone else and giving her no such loyalty. And that nagging, unrelenting infatuation with her captor terrified her as much as it pissed her the fuck off.

“Jace, stop.” Kara tried to force him away, desperate for enough space to breath without Jace’s fully erect cock protruding far too closely into the vicinity of her open legs. But pushing against the firmness of Jace’s chest was like pushing against a brick wall and expecting it to give way beneath the effort. It was, unsurprisingly, pointless. Trying not to panic at the precariousness of the situation she’d willingly walked into, Kara tried a different approach. “Please give me a bit of room,” Kara begged sweetly as she stoked his arm—a calming gesture rather than a seductive one. “You’re crushing me.”

“Am I?” Jace asked innocently as he pressed his hard-on between her thighs, grinding against her body roughly. “I think you like it.”

“I can assure you, I don’t.” Kara tried to leverage the strength of her legs against him, but the movement merely caused more friction between them as he straddled her hips. “Get the fuck off of me!” Kara shouted in frustration, her helplessness infuriating.

“Shut your goddamn mouth,” Jace growled as he lowered to attack her mouth with his, kissing her with a passion that felt more like hatred than desire. He could feel the vibrations of her screams against his tongue as he muffled her protests with the seal of his mouth. His hand twisted in her hair as he held her still beneath him, taking by force everything she no longer wanted to give him. Jace scoffed at Kara’s continued attempts to push him away. If she knew him better, she would know that he couldn’t be denied so easily.

Trembling with the realization that Jace could truly do whatever he wanted with her and nothing and no one could stop him, Kara used the last weapon at her disposal and bit down as hard as she possibly could against Jace’s invasive tongue. She continued to bite until the taste of blood filled her mouth, biting harder still until she felt Jace pull away so suddenly that she didn’t register his raised hand until she felt the sting of an open palm against her cheek.

Kara gasped in reaction, though the brutal slap shouldn’t have surprised her. Jace had hit her before. In fact, she’d always known exactly the kind of man he was—a brute who played upon the weakness of others. And she’d let him twist at the hurt and insecurity she had regarding Cade until she was so desperate to feel somethinggoodthat she’d allowed him inside her head, inside her mouth, nearly inside her body before she had a welcome shock of common sense. It was a mistake that she would never make again.

“Did that feel good, Jace?” Kara taunted as she rubbed at her sore cheek. “Is smacking around someone who is helpless beneath you the trick to getting your dick hard?”

“You want to know what gets my dick hard, baby?” Jace asked, his words deceptively playful while his tone was sharp with danger. Reaching down, he grabbed ahold of Kara’s dress with both hands and tore it all the way down the middle, exposing the softness of her flesh with only a thin lace bra and panties for cover. He would get to those soon too. Relishing the sight of her smooth, creamy skin, Jace skimmed his fingertips over the tops of her full breasts spilling out of her bra as her chest heaved. When she tried to stop him, he merely snatched up both of her thin wrists with one hand and forced them over her head.

“Are you scared, Kara?” Jace asked as he watched her tremble beneath his touch, his fingers trailing down over her stomach until they met the lacy edge of her panties.

“Jace, please stop,” Kara pleaded, the strength in her voice nearly gone as she started to stop fighting the inevitable. People like Jace always got what they wanted. She was merely another causality in man’s selfish pursuit of pleasure.

“I like it when you beg me, baby. Do it again.” Jace’s fingers slipped lower, stroking at her center over her panties.

Kara flinched at the intrusive contact, trying one last desperate time to wriggle out from under him. Her struggle was useless. “Please,” Kara begged, her voice nearly as sob. She braced herself for the invasion she knew would come, pleading with her consciousness to escape the horrible reality of Jace’s assault by way of pleasant memories or fantasies of the man she actually cared for. She pretended it was Cade lying on top of her, pressing against her entrance, preparing to fill her to the brim.

But the horrible violation never came.

Instead, the library doors flung open so hard that they ricocheted off the walls behind them with an ear-splittingbang. The surprise of the intrusion caused Jace to slacken his hold enough for Kara to lift herself slightly from her prostrate position on the leather couch and make eye contact with the dark, looming figure in the entrance. Her heart faltered briefly from sheer relief when she caught sight of Cade standing guard of the doorway like an ominous angel of vengeance, his face contorted with pure, unadulterated fury, his jacket discarded as though he had entered the room prepared for a fight. He took in the sight of Jace’s body pressed forcefully against Kara and the obviously frantic pleading of her eyes. A call for help that he was pretty fucking grateful he had made it in time to answer.

“Whatthe fuckdo you think you’re doing?” Cade asked, his words softly dangerous as though the overwhelming magnitude of his anger had taken away his ability to shout. The quiet deadliness of his tone was even more threatening than bellows of rage.

With a mixture of arrogance and audacity that seemed to be his signature attitude, Jace only half moved himself off Kara and stared back at Cade with an expression that could only be described as nonchalant indifference. “Ashford,” Jace greeted casually. “I know you were raised in a castle, but didn’t they teach you to knock where you come from?”

“In case you have forgotten, this is my goddamn house. I’m under no obligation to announce myself before entering any ofmyrooms.”

---